Exceptional (4 page)

General, it will be a long time before major reinforcements can go to the Philippines, longer than the garrison can hold out with any driblet assistance, if the enemy commits major forces to their reduction. But we must do everything for them that is humanly possible. The people of China, of the Philippines, of the Dutch East Indies will be watching us. They may excuse failure but they will not excuse abandonment. Their trust and friendship are important to us. Our base must be Australia, and we must start at once to expand it and to secure our communications to it. In this last we dare not fail. We must take great risks and spend any amount
of money required.

Marshall agreed with Eisenhower's assessment and told him, “Do your best
to save them.”

It wasn't possible to save the Philippines in 1942, despite Eisenhower's herculean efforts to direct men and matériel to the Pacific Theater. As Japanese aims in the Pacific became clear, and as America's European allies urged that planning go forward for the “Hitler First” policy, Eisenhower increasingly recognized the importance of fighting in Europe. He wrote his thoughts on a memo pad on his desk:

We've got to go to Europe and fight . . . if we're to keep Russia in, save the Middle East and Burma; we've got to begin slugging with air at West Europe; to be followed by a land attack
as soon as possible.

On June 8, 1942, Marshall sent Eisenhower to Europe to command all American forces in the European Theater.

The great debate between the Allies in 1942 and 1943 concerned the timing of a cross-channel invasion of Europe. All knew it had to be done. American planners wanted it done soon. Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, whose nonaggression pact with Hitler had proven to be worth as much to him as the Munich agreement had been to the Czechs and the British, was now fighting for his nation's survival. It was crucial to the Allied cause that Stalin's forces continue to engage the Germans. It was crucial to Stalin that the Allies open a second front soon.

The British did not believe the Allies were ready for an invasion of Europe and instead urged that we fight Hitler's forces in North Africa. The American military planners saw North Africa as a diversion and wanted to move more quickly to confront Hitler in Europe. President Roosevelt sided with the British. He realized he could not overcome their reluctance, and he recognized the North Africa operation offered the best option for engaging Hitler's forces in the near term. On November 8, 1942, Operation Torch was launched when U.S. and British forces landed in Morocco and Algeria. By May 1943, after defeating the Axis forces in Tunisia, the Allies had prevailed.

As historian Rick Atkinson has noted, it was more than territory that we gained in our first campaign against the Wehrmacht:

Four U.S. divisions now had combat experience. . . . Troops had learned the importance of terrain, of combined arms, of aggressive patrolling, of stealth, of massed armor. They now knew what it was like to be bombed, shelled, and machine-gunned, and
to fight on.

The North Africa campaign had changed Eisenhower, as well. To the skills that made him a supremely valuable staff officer, he had now added the
experience of command.

The period 1942–43 also brought victories for the Allies in the
Pacific. The most important of these occurred in June 1942 at the Battle of Midway. The Japanese sent a massive fleet, including four aircraft carriers, to attack the American base on Midway. The Americans, having broken the Japanese codes, knew of the planned attack and prepared to prevent it. Admiral Chester Nimitz deployed three American carriers—
Enterprise, Hornet
, and
Yorktown
—to defend the island. In a surprise attack, planes flying from these ships were able to destroy
three of Japan's four carriers. A fourth Japanese carrier,
Hiryu,
was also destroyed but not before planes launched off its deck severely damaged the
Yorktown
, which was
sunk the next day. The battle was a decisive victory for the Americans and inflicted severe losses on the Japanese. It changed the course of the war in the Pacific and set us on the path to defeat Japan.

IN THE SPRING OF 1944, Eisenhower had moved his headquarters from London to Portsmouth, on the southern coast of England, to be close to the main embarkation point for the Allied invasion of Europe. He had set D-Day for June 5, and had been meeting twice daily with his weather experts and his chief commanders. When the team gathered at 0400 on June 4 the weather report called for high winds, rough seas, and thick cloud cover. Eisenhower postponed the attack. Ships that had been loaded and launched had to return to port and make themselves ready to launch again
in twenty-four hours.

The next day, Eisenhower's meteorologists told the assembled team that there appeared to be a small window of good weather beginning on June 6. Storms were likely to follow, raising Eisenhower's concern, as he later wrote, that the Allies might land “the first several waves successfully and then find later build-up impracticable, and so have to leave the isolated original attacking forces easy prey to German counteraction. However, the consequences of the delay
justified
great risk.” Among the consequences Eisenhower was particularly concerned about were the safety and morale of the troops already aboard ships, “
poised and ready.” He gave the order to go.

Successful amphibious landings in North Africa, Sicily, and Salerno had given the Allies valuable experience, but those coastlines
had been unfortified. The endeavor to land on the continent, breach Hitler's Atlantic Wall, and establish a foothold through which to supply the invading forces was unlike anything that had ever been done. In the days after the invasion,
Time
reported that “the plan had grown to a complexity of detail incomprehensible to the civilian mind.” The Navy's invasion plans were 800 pages long and a full set of naval orders
weighed 300 pounds. Yet the Allies' objective was clear, as were Eisenhower's orders from the combined chiefs of staff: “You will enter the continent of Europe, and, in conjunction with the other United Nations, undertake operations aimed at the heart of Germany and the destruction of
her armed forces.”

If the Allies had been thrown back to the sea, the consequences would have been devastating. Millions of additional lives would have been lost, and there would have been a struggle for domination in Europe between Hitler and Stalin. In an interview in 1994, historian Stephen Ambrose explained the significance of D-Day:

You can't exaggerate it. You can't overstate it. This was the pivot point of the twentieth century. It was the day on which the decision was made as to who was going to rule in this world in the second half of the twentieth century. Is it going to be Nazism, is it going to be communism, or are the democracies
going to prevail?

The essence of what the Allies accomplished on D-Day is captured in two photos. The first was taken from inside a Higgins boat
as American GIs disembarked, laden with their backpacks and weapons, heading through the surf toward Omaha Beach. The silhouette of each soldier reminds us that it was individual men whose heroism that day saved civilization.

The second photo was taken from the heights above Omaha Beach at the end of the day on June 6, 1944. Thousands of Allied men, ships, trucks, and tanks fill the image, stretching to the horizon. The results of the massive American mobilization and production effort of the previous four years can be seen pouring onto the continent of Europe. In an oral history, John Reville, who was a lieutenant with F Company, 5th Ranger Battalion, recalled being on top of the bluff with his runner, Private Rex Low, at the end of that day of days. “Rex,” Reville said, pointing out at the thousands of ships filling the English Channel, “take a look at this. You'll never see a sight like this again
in your life.”

June 6, 1944, was a day when America's greatness was on full display, from the unparalleled heroism of the soldiers who stormed the beaches; to the ingenuity of men like Henry Higgins, who invented the landing craft that made the invasion possible; to the courage and fortitude of the Rangers who took the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc; to the business leaders like Bill Knudsen and Henry Kaiser who had driven American industry to turn out the thousands of ships and planes necessary to win the war; to the commanders like Marshall, Eisenhower, and Omar Bradley who built the force and planned and commanded the invasion. The world had never seen anything like it.

And on that day, the eyes of all the world were on the coast of France. First news of the invasion broke overnight while most Americans slept. By 4:00
A.M.
“every church was lighted and in
every church people prayed,”
Time
reported. As the nation awoke to the news, the mood across the land was solemn:

There was no sudden fear, as on that September morning in 1939 when the Germans marched into Poland; no sudden hate, as on Pearl Harbor day. This time, moved by a common impulse, the casual churchgoers, as well as the devout
went to pray.

At 10:30
A.M.
, families knelt together by their radios as President Roosevelt led the nation in prayer:

Almighty, God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness
in their faith.

American GIs fighting on other fronts were gripped by the news, for they knew the way home led over the beaches of France. And in Amsterdam, one young fifteen-year-old girl tracked the movement of the Allied forces, hour by hour, through BBC broadcasts over her wireless. In her diary, she wrote:

My dearest Kitty, “This is D Day,” the BBC announced at twelve. The
invasion has begun! This morning at eight the British reported heavy bombing of Calais, Boulogne, Le Havre, Cherbourg, as well as Pas de Calais. . . . According to German news, British paratroopers have landed on the coast of France. . . . BBC broadcast in German, Dutch, French and other languages at ten: The invasion has begun!

Anne Frank and her family dared to hope the news meant the liberation was at hand. “A huge commotion in the Annex!” she wrote.
“Will this year, 1944, bring us victory?” No one could know, but the prospect gave them courage. “Where there is hope,
there is life,” Anne wrote.

Anne Frank and her family were arrested in their annex on August 4, 1944, before the liberation came. Anne and her sister, Margot, were taken to Auschwitz and then to Bergen-Belsen, where Anne died in the early spring of 1945. The British liberated the camp
on April 12.

LIEUTENANT FRANCES SLANGER AND three other U.S. Army nurses waded ashore on D-Day plus four. Over the next five weeks they cared for more than three thousand
wounded and dying soldiers. In her tent one night, as she thought about all she had seen, Frances wrote a letter to
Stars and Stripes
honoring the American GI:

To every GI wearing an American uniform—for you we have the greatest admiration and respect. . . . We have learned a great deal about our American soldier and the stuff he is made of. The wounded do not cry. Their buddies come first. They show such patience and determination. The courage and fortitude they show is
awesome to behold.

Frances did not live to see her letter published. She was killed the next night when a German shell ripped
through her tent.

Born in Lodz, Poland, in 1913, Frances, together with her mother and sister, secured passage on a ship bound for America in 1920. They were Jews hoping to escape persecution and build a better life. As a young girl, Frances sold fruit on the streets of Boston with her father and dreamed of becoming a nurse. In 1937 she graduated from Boston City Hospital's
School of Nursing.

Frances kept a scrapbook, as did many young girls in those days. In one of hers, she copied this:

There was a dream that men could one day speak their thoughts. There was a hope that men could stroll through the streets unafraid. There was a prayer that each could speak to his own God. That dream, that hope, that prayer
became America.

FORTY YEARS AFTER D-DAY, President Reagan stood at Pointe du Hoc where American Rangers had secured the cliffs. Looking out at an audience filled with veterans of the landing, he said:

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are the men who in your “lives fought for life . . . and left the vivid air signed with your honor.”

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge—and pray God we have not lost it—that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right
not to doubt.

In the Normandy American Cemetery, above Omaha Beach, 9,387 Americans
are buried, young men who gave all. The inscription in the central colonnade at the cemetery is a tribute to them and to all the Americans killed fighting to liberate Europe and preserve our freedom:
“This embattled shore, portal of freedom, is forever hallowed by the ideals, the valor and the sacrifices of
our fellow countrymen.”

VICE PRESIDENT HARRY TRUMAN was presiding over the United States Senate at 4:45
P.M.
on April 12, 1945, when Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in his cottage at
Warm Springs, Georgia. Unaware of Roosevelt's death, Truman recessed the Senate at five o'clock and headed through the Capitol to a meeting with Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn in his hideaway office, the “
Board of Education.” When Truman arrived, Rayburn told him he had a message to call the president's press secretary. Steve Early asked the vice president to come immediately to the White House. Two hours later, Truman was in the Cabinet Room being sworn in as president
of the United States.